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I remember the first time I fired up Jiliwild, my hands practically trembling with anticipation. Having spent years immersed in racing titles, from the technical precision of Gran Turismo to the arcade chaos of Need for Speed, I'd been craving something that truly celebrated the art of drifting. When I discovered Jiliwild promised exactly that focus, I couldn't wait to dive in. And initially, it delivered. The sensation of initiating a drift, feeling the car's weight transfer, and maintaining that perfect angle through a hairpin is, frankly, sublime. The developers clearly poured their hearts into perfecting this core mechanic, and in those isolated moments of tire-smoking glory, Jiliwild shines. It’s in the spaces between these moments, however, that the experience begins to fray at the edges, revealing a package that feels surprisingly incomplete for a modern racing game.

This isn't to say the game is without merit. When you're in the zone, linking drifts together on a winding mountain pass, the game achieves a rhythmic, almost meditative state that few other racers can match. The physics model for drifting feels weighty and responsive, requiring genuine skill to master. I must have spent a good three hours just on one particular downhill course, relentlessly practicing my entry speeds and throttle control. That level of dedication to a single mechanic is admirable. But herein lies Jiliwild's fundamental dilemma, one that echoes the struggles of titles like Japanese Drift Master. By focusing so intensely on making drifts feel phenomenal, the developers have seemingly neglected everything else. The other event types—what should be complementary pillars of the experience—feel like afterthoughts. The standard circuit races, for instance, are a lesson in frustration. The AI seems tuned for drifting excellence, not clean racing, leading to chaotic and often unfair battles on tracks that weren't designed for wheel-to-wheel combat. It’s a racer that, more often than not, fails to deliver the sheer joy of tearing through the streets in a blazing-fast car, wasting its otherwise captivating setting with road designs that don't support that fantasy.

I can't help but contrast this with the recent launch of Mario Kart World for the Switch 2. Nintendo faced an immense challenge: following up the evergreen Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a humble Switch port of a Wii U game that surpassed all expectations by becoming the top-selling game on one of Nintendo's most successful platforms, with lifetime sales I'd estimate to be well over 60 million units. The pressure was on to craft a new game that felt sufficiently fresh yet familiar, a title destined to be synonymous with the new console. And from my time with it, they've largely succeeded. Its blend of skillful mechanical tweaks, lovely aesthetics, and a general design philosophy built around delightful surprises creates a cohesive and endlessly entertaining package. It knows exactly what it is and polishes every facet to a mirror shine. Jiliwild, in its current state, feels like the polar opposite—a game with an identity crisis.

My experience with Jiliwild has been a rollercoaster of admiration and disappointment. The ambition is clear; you can see the skeleton of a fantastic, niche racing sim. But in trying to cater for a variety of event types, it undermines its most compelling mechanic. The drag racing mode is perfunctory at best, and the open-world "exploration" feels barren, populated with repetitive challenges that do little to engage you beyond the core drifting. It continually reminds you how inadequate it is at supporting racing styles outside of that narrow focus. It's a game that can look incredible in small, shareable snippets—a perfectly executed, smoke-filled drift captured in a 15-second clip—but feels sorely lacking as a complete package. You get the sense the development team had a brilliant core idea but ran out of time or resources to build a worthy world around it.

So, where does that leave us, the dedicated racing game enthusiasts? Mastering Jiliwild, then, becomes a peculiar exercise. You aren't mastering a well-rounded game; you're mastering a single, brilliant mechanic that exists within a half-finished shell. The "secrets" to conquering Jiliwild have less to do with unlocking hidden content and more to do with tempering your expectations. Focus on the drifting time trials. Ignore the poorly implemented race events. Create your own fun within the constraints of what the game does well. It’s a game I want to love, and in my heart, I believe a "Definitive Edition" with more focused content and polished secondary modes could be something special. But as it stands, Jiliwild is a diamond in the rough—a beautifully flawed gem that offers moments of pure driving bliss, if you're willing to overlook its many, many shortcomings. For now, I'll keep it installed for when the drifting itch needs a very specific scratch, but for a complete and satisfying racing fix, my time is better spent elsewhere.